Political Communication as a Tragedy of the Commons

Abstract

In this article, we argue that many contemporary challenges to democracy can be traced back to how political organizations compete for attention. We begin with the idea that these organizations appeal for attention both by mobilizing their own members, and also through media that reaches a wider audience, such as social media and mass media. But since many organizations are competing for the limited attention of this wider audience, they all have an incentive to send “too many” and “too sensational” messages. This overwhelms the audience and leads to polarization and populism. Our article describes the conditions necessary for this “tragedy of the commons” to occur and also reviews empirical evidence demonstrating that these conditions are met. We find that social media is not a necessary condition for the model, but does accelerate it. We conclude that Elinor Ostrom’s theories of the commons are important for understanding political communication.